[onion2k]

Being a polymath was once doable.

Any reasonably intelligent child who can write some poetry, understand basic calculus, and has a working knowledge of chemistry would be heralded as a polymath if you dropped them into the Victorian era. The breadth of human knowledge is just bigger now.

[latexr]

You’re stretching it way too far. Most adults don’t have all those, let alone “reasonably intelligent” children. There were child geniuses before, too.

[notahacker]

To be fair, there's an awful lot a not particularly intelligent high school child is taught about biology that Aristotle, who clearly was a genius, didn't when trying to synthesize the existing knowledge of everyone he met and come up with new ideas from his own observations.

It's unlikely Aristotle made the mistake of thinking that because other people generally weren't writing this stuff down that meant the world was an uncomplicated place